Is the Net an Independent Artist's New Radio? 139
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Menta from MP3 Newswire recently posted an article that describes how the Net has shifted his tastes from main stream radio artists to indie acts he discovered online. Slashdot has run a number of articles dealing with the struggles of independent artists and how the net is helping them. Between the recent payola scandal and the incursion of Big Radio into podcasting the major labels are pushing hard to monopolize what they can. The good news is that Big Music is much slower adjusting to the changes brought about by technology than Little Music and the sky is looking rosier for the independent artist. In a July article, CNET also discussed how things are looking much better for the independents."
No (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:2)
newsforge (Score:1)
http://business.newsforge.com/business/05/07/28/1
Re:newsforge (Score:1)
Re:newsforge (Score:1)
Re:newsforge (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:2)
Well, (NEWS FLASH!), they do offer that service. You pay for lots of stuff, many people actually - gasp - pay for inde music! Maybe you should look into sat radio befor you spout rubish, eh?
Re:No (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:2)
I see no contradiction. The "something better" would still be mostly the music I already own. Why should I bother paying for it again, along with other stuff that I may or may not like?
Again, if any of these services have unique material, like an "Unreleased Rock Concerts" station consisting of concerts that have been broadcasted by radio statio
Re:No (Score:2)
For what it's worth, I listen to virtually no music, but I do think that the Internet is having and will continue to have a tremendous impact on virtually any business that exercises control through limited distribution mechanisms. We've already seen this somewhat in the news industry (via blogging) and music/video (through mechanisms like
Re:No (Score:2)
Interestingly enough, the technology is already here. Any EDGE or UMTS connection should be capable of streaming your everyday 128kbps shoutcasts. Even plain old GPRS should suffice for lower bitrates.
All you need is a smartphone (symbian, MS, palm, whatever, many exist already) with headphone out and an mp3 player that can play streams.
I thin
Re:No (Score:3, Informative)
Traffic and weather (Score:2)
You miss the two big reasons for radio: real time traffic and weather. Most days the weather I can tell by looking out the window, but sometimes it is nice to know what is coming before I see it. (Is that a tornado and I should pull off and find shelter, or just a storm that just slows me down)
Traffic is big. If I know about an accident that happens after I leave work, but before I get to the road it is on, I can take an alternate route. (though I also need to know if everyone else is taking the alt
Re:Traffic and weather (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah.
Thousands of miles of frikin COMMERICALS.
Oldstyle, corporate/corrupt, Milli Vanilli crapola infested "Radio" can suck my quivering antenna.
Re:No (Score:1, Informative)
If you're in a largeish city, you're in luck though: there are College stations. I live in Toronto, and between the two University stations CIUT and CKLN plus CBC for intelligent programming, there's no end of radio. And, most importantly, they're all commercial-free. I cannot stand radio commercials. Not even a tiny bit.
Re:No (Score:2)
If you need a bit of info to understand their difference from ClearChannel [clearchannel.com]: Infinity owns K-Rock [krockradio.com] [WXRK, New York], the station that runs the Howard Stern Radio Show (until he switches to Sirius). Clearchannel discontinued their airings of the Howard Stern Radio Show suddenly one morning on almost all of their stations that had rebroadcast agreements.
podcasts are made of love (Score:1, Informative)
Radio isn't just about music. (Score:4, Insightful)
Another very important component is the dispersal of political thought. Indeed, that perhaps overrides the importance of music any day. If it were not for the independence of the current Internet, groups such as the 9/11 truth movement would never have been able to deliver their message to so many people.
Re:Radio isn't just about music. (Score:1)
Re:Radio isn't just about music. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Radio isn't just about music. (Score:1)
Re:Radio isn't just about music. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Radio isn't just about music. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I'd not head of them until you mentioned them. Now, having read their website, I'm still not entirely sure what the truth that they are attempting to tell everyone is.
Re:Radio isn't just about music. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sorry, is that a good or a bad thing?
Re:Radio isn't just about music. (Score:1)
Same here (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Same here (Score:3, Interesting)
Now it's all ABC, Ebert Roeper, Newsweek same shit you see on the newstand. Why waste time with a new medium, if it is the same people delivering the same message.
Re:Same here (Score:1)
Re:Same here (Score:2)
It's because Time/Warner and company bid on that space on the iTunes site. That's fair enough to me. The whole point of iTunes, from Apple's perspective, is to make money, which the media conglomerates have. The natural progression of this is to find that the top 10 podcast feeds are McMedia. I sympathize, but my advice is to just scroll down
Re:Big Media Domination (Score:2)
Maybe for the banner graphics, but I think the original poster was referring to the top 10 text list, complied by Apple based on number of subscribers.
The explanation for this shift is logical, but not very exciting. As more and more people hear about and subscribe to Podcasts, more generic "mass appeal" popular content is going to get subscribed to by more aggregate people than the devoted fans of the narrow interest casts. When
Re:Same here (Score:1)
Because at least people now have the choice of listening to something less mainstream.
Re:Same here (Score:2, Insightful)
Ironically, they play the songs so often that there is no need to buy the music, even if you do like it.
Re:Same here (Score:2)
Problem is, I'm not interested in commerce, I want to listen to quality music.
I don't give a hoot about "quality" music :) I like gritty bootlegged concerts. If a top 40 act can put on a good live show, so be it. To date, off hand, I can't think of any.
So now there are these great specialized internet radio's with music I never heard before.
Now we're talkin'. I purchase maybe a CD a month. Since the dawn of napster, I have only purchased one top 40 cd -- and that was the recent Foo Fighters. Eve
future of radio (Score:2, Interesting)
Why bring RIAA into this? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Why bring RIAA into this? (Score:2)
Is the record industry doomed? (Score:1)
The radio will obviously follow. An automatic "intelligent" agent will probably be able to build up a playlist based on your mood and taste. Let's hope we will not have to w
payola and indie airplay (Score:2)
Payola has been around for many, many years and will certainly be around for many more. If small labels are so foolish as to think that the Sony case will increase their ability to gain radio airtime, it is no wonder that they are a small label.
Absolutely (Score:4, Informative)
If I lived in a larger city, maybe there'd be enough of an independent music scene that this wouldn't be necessary, but in South Texas, it just isn't there (unless you're into Tejano).
Re:Absolutely (Score:1)
Re:Absolutely (Score:2)
Then again, unless you're in Houston or Austin, you're pretty screwed in terms of radio.
An iPod or satellite radio are the only ways you can escape it!
Re:Absolutely (Score:2)
There are still a handful of interesting musicians, but really, we're close enough to Austin that almost anyone with talent has already moved.
Re:Mod parent UP (Score:2)
I personally use RhythmBox; it's really improved over the last few versions, though it does still have a way to go.
Big Radio is going down (Score:5, Insightful)
If you buy the Long Tail [typepad.com] theory, it looks like the media market will become only more diverse as we increase our global bandwidth capacity.
Re:Big Radio is going down (Score:2)
I foresee broadcast radio as the province of a few 50,000-watt megastations who have the huge listening audiences to make ad sales profitable, and a handfull of community-supported stations who rely on quality programming. The broadcast market won't support anything else if it has to compete wi
Re:Big Radio is going down (Score:2)
Uh, They could just make laws to solve that. That is the whole reason for copyright.
Missing Link? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Missing Link? (Score:2)
Not all Slashdotters are snobs like you...
Re:Missing Link? (Score:2)
Re:Missing Link? (Score:5, Informative)
Imagine listening to the radio and being able to influence what kind of stuff you hear. Imagine hearing all kinds of things that you've never heard of before. Imagine no "...buffering..."
iRate does this.
Oh, and:
Open source? Check!
Supports Creative Commons? Check!
Legal Downloads? Check!
Runs on Linux? Check!
Free as in Beer? Check!
Did I mention no streaming?
More detail:
Technical explanation with easy to understand diagram here:
http://irate.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Site you can send the non-technically inclined to here:
http://www.irateradio.com/ [irateradio.com]
"Just click on the executable. No, really, it's safe this time."
Oh and the guy's name is "ajones". He's a kiwi. Mad props to kiwis.
Not true! (Score:1)
No question about it (Score:3, Interesting)
Like with so many things, either the dissemintation of information, music, or software, the internet is a great delivery mechanism with a ridiculously huge distribution potential.
Let's take advantage of it. Speaking of which, check out my sig.
Rich...
... of the future? (Score:1, Redundant)
Is the automobile the bicycle of the future?
Is television the radio of the future?
Is the space shuttle the car of the future?
Is the radio the talking of the future?
Things are what they are capable of being, not more or less.
*shrug*
Indie Podcasts are the new college radio (Score:2, Informative)
This is a perfect example of a radio show with knowledgable hosts and DJs, well-informed interviews, excellently selected indie music, indie music news, etc. In fact it is a picture-perfect radio show... but it's a podcast.
Re:Indie Podcasts are the new college radio (Score:1)
It has an iTunes feed that includes chapters, pictures, and links, so I can skip a song or two I don't like. Very nice. I wish more people would include that.
Also, it includes songs from independent artists from all over the world. From Japan to Belgium. I would never have found that kind of stuff on my own. Very cool.
Are you kidding? (Score:1)
No matter what, it's hard work (Score:5, Insightful)
-pronobozo
WOXY (Score:3, Interesting)
the RIAA already knows this... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:the RIAA already knows this... (Score:2)
We live by the golden rule; those with the gold (the international corporations) make the rules. All of this crap is just bread and circuses.
Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:5, Insightful)
artist -> art -> marketing/advertising -> distribution -> retailer -> listener
It's pretty obvious that people can only like music they have heard, so "The Music Industry" tried to control radio, where listeners could hear music for free (if you consider being forced to hear commercials free) what "The Music Industry" wanted you to buy. In fact, the playlist was often created by a single person at the station who more or less made money from the industry by pushing certain "products".
An artist had two choices. Sell out and let "The Music Industry" take care of marketing/advertising -> distribution and give up large control over their art in their contracts -or- go indie with a smaller label that didn't have the power to really get a large audience to hear the music.
The internet has taken care of one half of the problem. So distribution is now available more or less for free when compared to shipping CD's to retail stores.
What's missing right now is marketing/advertising. You have to get people to hear a song before they can decide they like it or not. Apple figured this out and now that's what PodCasting is about. If you find a PodCast you like, then you are likely to find music there you want... and Apple hopes you buy it from the iTunes Music Store.
But the whole current system is flawed, IMO. I'm certainly in the minority with this opinion, but I view artist, musicians in this case, as part of a service industry. They don't make property, like a chair or a computer, they create music, which is not physical and hence can't be owned. But that's a debate for another thread.
The good news? Big Music is going to die and it doesn't even know it. The bad news? Artist need to switch to a neo-patronage system to get paid when information trading gets to the point that it kills Big Music.
Re:Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite true.
I am an "independent musician". I distibute my music over the web. I know many, many other musicians who do so also.
Most musicians I know are quite good at the art part, and quite bad/clueless at the marketing part (myself included). Marketing is mostly salesmanship. Musicians, for the most part, are not salesmen. Mostly, we dislike salesmen.
If you look at sucessfull bands that came from the indie scene, either they were good at marketing, or had someone on their side that was.
Marketing is phone calls, footwork, contacts, etc. We'd rather smoke weed and write songs.
Here's my marketing: go check out my band: http://theexperiments.com/ [theexperiments.com] Free music for download.
See, that's about as much marketing as most bands can do. Now, where's the bong?
-dave
Re:Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you look at sucessfull bands that came from the indie scene, either they were good at marketing, or had someone on their side that was.
:)
Marketing is phone calls, footwork, contacts, etc. We'd rather smoke weed and write songs.
That is what a record label should do. A band should be able to sign up with a label/promoter for a fair cost. Unfortunately the RIAA labels are not this way. Instead of being the Artist's friend, they have turned into greedy little maggots that not only take money from the Artist, but also wants to own their music (copyright). This has worked in the past, but Artists are starting to get wise and use the Internet to get their music out. There are also Independent labels and sites (DMusic.com, CDBaby.com, and Garageband.com) just to name a few that are willing to give the Artist a fair shake.
Hopefully sites like this will prosper and the big labels will continue to lose business.
I'll check out your site -- I'm always looking for something new.
Re:Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:2)
The key to great marketing is anyone else (Score:2)
So it doesn't matter how many people you pay to market something as it will never really be as effective as people that are not marketers.
So, for a band to do well in the future on thier own, I think they have to (a) produce good music, and (b) be really excited about the band and tell anyone they can about it. If you have a lot of energy regarding your band that coul
Yuup... publicity, publicity, publicity... (Score:1)
Re:Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:2)
If nobody had to worry about money, or if all artists could get paid AS MUCH upfront for their intangible creation service vs per instance, then they wouldn't need to lean on the artificial scarcity of an (unbalanced) copyright.
People understand that information isn't REAL property, but the current outofwhack social contract is to grant a person not-so-temporary artificial property cop
Re:Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:3, Insightful)
Most musicians just want people to hear their music. It's about communication, not money. If they can somehow live off the act of creation, then so much the better.
Market economics breaks when you ef
Re:Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:1)
I think we can look forward to a really fragmented music scene - similar to the alternative/indy scene in the early nineties, when there was a lot of stuff about, but when people tended only to stick with what they listened to, and not cross over
Re:Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:2)
I recently had lunch with the guy that started that station, and probably the most interesting fact I learned was that t
Re:Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:2)
No, its better (Score:1)
Edgen (Score:1, Informative)
Quit misusing the term monopoly (Score:2)
Not a monopoly? Okay, fine... (Score:1)
When the big boys start using their beatin' sticks on the small guys, don't be suprised when suddenly everyone treats the big boys as evil.
Re:Quit misusing the term monopoly (Score:2)
Small mom&pop record stores are the best bet, but then it depends on where you liv
Last FM (Score:5, Informative)
When you've done it for a while you'll have your own profile. You can then go and listen to music that your "musical neighbours" are listening to.
Lots of indie music on there. Lots of everything on there.
Bob
(Not affiliated with them)
Re:Last FM (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Last FM (Score:3, Informative)
Bob
Re:Last FM (Score:3, Informative)
Interestingly, it has an OSX, Linux static binary, FreeBSD and FreeBSD AMD64 version and QT4 BSD licensed source.
So is this just late 90's radio? That's what it looks like.
Re:Last FM (Score:3, Informative)
In the player, select "change station", type in a band and listen to similar artists. This updates your profile with the stuff you've listened to.
Or get the plugin for your favourite MP3 player and it will update your profile as you listen to your MP3s.
Once you have a decent size profile you'll be able to click on "Start Radio" and choose "Neighbour Radio" which streams stuff that other people who listen to the same kind of music you do ha
No... (Score:2)
I get the feeling it more geared towards independant music, but I would because I run my own station (and skip those other songs).
Its definately worth giving a listen from time to time.
Re:Last FM (Score:4, Funny)
NO THANKS!
Re:Last FM (Score:2)
75 Minutes - Your weekly allowance of indie music (Score:1)
the answer is YES. (Score:1)
It isn't just payola (Score:3, Insightful)
The problems with FM radio go far beyond payola. Music Director's no longer pick songs to play because they thing that the song will be something their listeners will think is cool. Music Director's now rely almost exclusively on what the trade magazines (R&R and Billboard) say is popular. The trade magazines get their information from the bigger stations, which pay consultants to pick out songs
The consultants are not picking songs because listeners will think it is something new and interesting and might bring in new ears, but rather, they pick songs based on the idea of 'please, please, we can't lose/offend any of our existing listeners.'
This is a poor business model, as it doesn't bring in new people, and this a big reason radio is losing listeners to the internet.
Stations that only play 250 songs (1 days worth) on a rotating basis is another.
"Let 1,000 flowers bloom" (Score:2)
Web allowing for an unlimited number of band sites / indie radio casts.
Broadcast radio delivering 'news' (read: Clear Channel spin) and what ends up in the top 40 (through quality, payola or a combination).
Excuse the Mao quote. Mabey the majors will end up sending the indie rockers away for reeducation (in the red states(?))
silly editors. (Score:2, Funny)
Is this question about 4 years late?
Engineers and Music (Score:1)
WFMU (Score:3, Informative)
Hence the reason why when it comes to music WFMU is unbeatable.
It's still teresterial radio, but it's otherwise available on the internet at 128k for free, of course, you should pledge if you like.
shifting tastes.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Individual tastes are always shifting. The internet doesn't really have that much to do with it. It all depends on the individual and their mood. This person would have found new music at some other source (the library, perhaps? Or blasting out of car window at a red light?) because they were in the mood for new music.
Sometimes I go months without listening to anything newer than 1968. I'll run Kazaa for hours searching for obscure pop songs from 1963-1968. It's as if music just stopped in the early 1970's. Others feel the same with perhaps different time periods.
For music period focus, the internet is invaluable. But for just exposure to different music, it's not the best medium. You need to know nearly exactly what you want before you can find it on the net.
A better way to get exposure to different music is to become part of drive share. This is where a hard drive (an older one with maybe 30 Gigabytes) is traded for one that is filled with each sharer's favorite music. Each person swaps an old drive with another person. The drives have the other person's favorite music on it. Each person puts only a gigabyte or so of music on it. Eventually you get a hard drive that has the favorite music of 30 different people with each person putting hundreds of minutes of their favorite music on it. No one makes judgement of the other's selections: no one erases the other's partition: no one hassles with so-called copyright issues.
The old method of music distribution and dissemination is rapidly fading and no realistic model is taking its place. You know that when an industry reaching the point where they trying to put its best customers in jail and extort large amounts of money from them because they can't resolve a pricing issue, the industry is in a lot of trouble.
I'm finding it all amusing. I especially like the part about how if the 'artists' aren't paid, then they won't produce any more quality product. Like if enough people copy Rod Zombie tracks, he's going to go sell insurance. Or if people don't pay $18 for Pink CDs, she's going to get discouraged and become a network applications engineer. Yeah, right... Popular music 'artists' and stars don't really have much choice about what they do, they are going to continue to do it whether they get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars or not. What the RIAA is really saying is that if people stop paying $18 for junk music, the music company executives will actually have to find some way to justify their huge salaries and perk packages. Heaven forbid! The 'artists' will just go back to whatever shithole that they were discovered from.
The real issue with the RIAA is whether music can really be bought and sold anymore. The concept that five people playing the same songs as everybody else with slightly different words and chord patterns can go to a recording studio for a week and a hundred million dollars comes to the record company is simply breaking down. It's dependent on a 20th century centrallized media and distribution model. It used to work and work well; it doesn't anymore. Putting people in prison and extorting money from them isn't going to change anything except cause the occasional music industry lawyer to get shot by people who disagree with the concept that they have to pay a fine for being the one in a million singled out by the RIAA to be fined for downloading some stupid inconseqencial pop song.
Music is like air. Everybody takes it in, puts it back out. It's absurd to claim that somebody wrote a pop or rock song that is basicly the same as the pop and rock songs that have been playing on the radio for the past 40 years. Music is simply part of the environment, no one can realistically claim to 'own' it. It doesn't matter what the law is. This is the new reality.
Good Heavens, I Hope So (Score:2)
I guess that's because I have no loyalty to any one station. I'm loyal to the content, not the provider, and the providers really suck.
'Casts can bring loyalty not only to the content but *also* to the provider, because they tend to be one and the same.
Electronic Music?? (Score:1)